Northeast states to auction 42.8M in carbon permits

Alex Garcia/Chicago TribuneFile photo of wind turbines in Illinois on March 3, 2010.

The states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, called RGGI, said today that they will be offering 40.6 million in CO2 allowances for sale at their eighth auction on June 9.

The minimum bid for each permit will be $1.86, unchanged from earlier auctions, RGGI said in an e-mailed statement. Each permit gives a plant the right to emit one ton of carbon dioxide.

At the previous auction in March, 40.6M of CO2 allowances for the first three-year control period were sold at a price of $2.07 and in a parallel offering, the RGGI states also auctioned 2.1M of CO2 allowances for the second three-year control period for $1.86. A small number of unsold allowances, 46,992, are to be sold in future auctions.

Proceeds from all auctions held to date now total more than $582.3 million.

Though the proceeds from RGGI auctions are intended to be spent on clean energy projects in each of the 10 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic participating states, Gov. Chris Christie has said he will be appropriating all proceeds this year, as well as some proceeds next year, to balance the Garden State's budget.